Duct Tape Steele
by SteeleHere44
Summary: Can be duct tape a solution? Let's see...


Disclaimer:

Remington Steele and its characters are owned by MTM. No copyright infringement intended. For entertainment purposes only.

Set after Season 4. Bonds of Steele and Season 5 are not in my universe.

Duct Tape Steeled

It was that time of the year when nobody was inspired to have some work done. Although the week between Christmas and New Year's was a very busy one, it should be taken as any other week of the year, working a lot.

The stakeout had taken more time than they expected. Instead of coming back home in the middle of the night, as usual, the sun was already peeking up when they finally did it. They parked the Rabbit in the garage, and making an extra effort, dragged themselves towards the elevator. Two entire nights in a row on duty stakeouts were burning every inch of their strength. Laura pushed the elevator button and waited. After a respectable amount of time without the doors opening, she tried it again.

"What is it with the elevator?" she mumbled.

"Calm down, Laura. It's almost working time, and people need to get out of the building, and they count on the elevator for that matter."

"Yes, but sometimes people would love to get _into_ the building, and the elevator is supposed to work for them as well." Although Laura was physically well trained after the years living at the loft, there was no chance to climb up the stairs this time. They were exhausted, and at this point, she was beginning to lose her temper.

"Icy calm, Laura; icy calm," he said trying to soothe her.

After a minute that seemed to last like a lot more, the elevator door opened. Laura was ready to jump into it when she noticed a man dressed in overalls holding some boxes, and another pile of them loaded beside him. Barely visible behind them were the Gordon's.

"Oh. Hi Ellen, hello Mark. I think I got you trapped in an extra trip to the garage. I apologize. It looks like someone is moving today," she added looking at the boxes; "This building would welcome another elevator." She whispered to Mr. Steele.

In the meantime, the man had come out of the elevator, taking the boxes with him, loading them neatly on a carrier he was holding.

Once all the boxes were already out, and they were finally accommodated inside, the elevator's door closed, and they started their way up to their floor.

After an uncomfortable silence, Ellen said, "We are the ones moving out."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Laura. "You only just moved in some months ago. I hope nothing bad happened to make you move out so fast. The building is nice, and the neighbors are easy to get along with." She finished her words hoping they weren't considered bad neighbors here at Rossmore too like happened once at the loft a couple of years before.

"Oh no! Nothing is bad with the building, or with the neighbors either. We are moving because we have been offered a bigger place."

Laura noticed Mr. Steele's brief gaze on her. They had been trying to find out a solution to their need for space after she moved in with him. The loft was still full of Laura's belongings. There was some furniture, irrelevant kitchenware certainly not missed by Laura, and entirely forgotten by Mr. Steele, and a very sentimental item; the piano. They were using the place mainly as a storage unit. But as eager as they were to get rid of the loft soon, they weren't ready enough to be out of Rossmore, unlike their neighbors. The place was full of memories. Memories they were still making.

"My mother is moving in with us," added Ellen in a glad tone, "But perhaps it would be better said that we are moving in with her."

Laura and Mr. Steele's faces went from weary to petrify in just a second; their eyes meeting in a brief gaze and their minds joined in only one name… Abigail. A young couple… well, they were in their thirties like them, and they were including a mother in law in their equation? It sounded at least desperate. A desperate solution Laura prayed to not be in need to look for in the future. She loved her mother, but mostly, she enjoyed their independence. Having Abigail living with them, or even a door away would at least mean giving away a good part of it. They kept their mouths shut, not sure about which one would be the safe comment to make.

Ellen continued her explanation then, "She has been living alone for some years now, but her health is not getting better as time goes by. She offered us to move into the house **,** and she is moving to the apartment over the garage. We could help each other without invading our own privacies in that way."

"Sounds like a nice solution," added Mr. Steele, looking to Mark. "Close but not too crowded…"

"You'll have to come and have lunch with us some weekend," said Mark.

They tried to show some enthusiasm. The two couples had met before, when Mark had tried a new _inside barbecue experiment_ , and the building smoke alarms went out. The whole floor's residents were in the hall in seconds, enveloped in an intense smoke cloud.

"Don't get scared. The barbecue will be outside this time. There are a nice terrace and a welcoming swimming pool to try if the barbecue gets too hot."

They all laughed, knowing what they were speaking about.

"It will be nice. Just give us a call once you are settled, and we'll be happy to be there. We will miss you!" added Laura sincerely.

"We will miss you too. You were the best neighbors we could have ever imagined, so quiet but so entertaining at the same time. Nobody will top your stories," said Ellen looking to them; "and your cooking will be missed of course" she added looking to Mr. Steele. She glanced at her watch, "I'm sorry, but we are short of time. We have all these people inside, and we have to get this finished…"

They said their goodbyes and the ex-neighbors to be followed their way. Mr. Steele opened their door.

"I'll miss them," said Laura, "They are very nice people."

They got into the apartment, and once there Laura noticed a twinkling light and walked directly towards the answering machine.

"Don't touch this evil machine, Laura."

"I'm just going to check the messages."

"You promised we were going to take the morning off to have some rest. Let's go do that, and you can answer all the messages once we wake up. I don't want to have nightmares related to office issues. I'd rather enjoy dreaming about office partners," he added with a wink.

She turned back to him and told him suddenly bewildered, "I didn't realize Mildred was a participant of those fantasies you usually dream of."

"You are the fantasy I'm always looking for in my dreams, Laura. Mildred's meddling is more aligned to the nightmare side of my dreams. She tends to lead the interrupting part even there."

"Okay. You win." Laura left the light blinking and walked to their bedroom, Mr. Steele following her steps. She started to take off her black attire when she noticed him standing static, staring nowhere over the headboard bed wall. "What are you looking at?" she asked, trying to bring him back to reality.

"Nothing," he answered and started with the same task himself. "Let's have some rest."

"What do you mean Beaumont decided to dispense with our agreement? We've been working on this case for two weeks! We`ve been waiting outside that building for two nights in a row now, and now that we are close to finding something he decides our services are not needed anymore?" Laura asked Mildred losing her temper.

"Calm down, Miss Holt. His loss is our gain. The man is insufferable. Even if we solve the case, he will claim inefficiency to have a discount on the billing. He is a cheater," added the secretary.

"You are right, Mildred. At least we are lucky we don't stumble across this kind of client very often. Send him the bill and let's move on." Laura went to her office and closed the door.

After a few minutes of calm after her bosses' stormy arrival, Mildred answered Mr. Steele's call, "Yes boss?"

"I have a question, Mildred. Do we have access to Rossmore's plans? I have to check on something."

"I think they were added to the mortgage receipts, boss. Is that another of our secret procedures, or Mrs. Steele is aware of it?"

"It's just a question, Mildred. We don't need to make Laura aware of every one of my intrigues, do we?"

"It depends on the intrigues. Will money be involved in this intrigue by any chance?"

There was silence on the other side of the line.

"I'll rephrase my question. Will Mrs. Steele be angry with you if she finds out?"

There was still silence coming from the other side of the line.

"Okay, I'll manage to be discreet, boss. But don't get me tangled in any of your messes. I'm not comfortable hiding things from Mrs. Steele."

"Don't worry. It will be fine, Mildred. Laura will not be angry this time. I'm capable enough to manage this matter prudently."

"I'm sure you are boss, I'm sure you are…"

The plans were on his desk right beside his tea just at the moment Laura turned to the door and left the office on her way to a new case meeting. Mr. Steele analyzed the drawings, and after a moment he dialed Mildred's number.

"I need to talk with Mr. Gordon, Mildred. I think we have his office's number."

"Sure chief," added Mildred.

His phone rang after a while, Mark on the other end of the line. They shared a conversation about Real State and other irrelevant subjects, and once Mr. Gordon's voice was off, so was Mr. Steele. He left the office in a hurry, giving Mildred a clue about his whereabouts, but under the promise to keep the information hidden enough in front of Laura.

They met at Rossmore after work; a delicious aroma, not remotely similar to any of Mark's creations, pleasantly invading the place.

"Did I ever tell you how delightful it is to be married to you?"

"I guess you did, but I don't mind you reminding me of it from time to time."

"It's the last I can do. We don't want you losing your inspiration because of my lack of spirit, do we?"

"I'd never blame you about any lack of spirit, Laura. Your spirit is always running fast speed. Unexpectedly fast sometimes. But we compensate when you gave me the chance to slow you down. "

Laura had noticed a carefully wrapped package resting on the coffee table. She had controlled her need to open it since her arrival, knowing he would suggest she do it at the right moment. If this man could be blamed for any habit of his old life, was to be blamed for his planned offensives. They were perfectly timed. So, she waited until he brought the parcel to the table, right before dessert. He put it beside her hand. The package was more significant than a jewelry box and smaller than a box of chocolates.

"Open it," he told her.

She carefully opened it, took the bow off and lifted the lid.

"Duct Tape?" she asked a bit baffled.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

"And we need Duct Tape for…?... Mr. Steele?"

He cleared his throat, "Perhaps I could give you a lot of examples about how duct tape would be used smartly, but I'm going to circumscribe to a few interesting ones."

"I'm listening," she answered leaning her elbow on the table, suspecting it would come in handy to have their faces closer after the next few seconds.

"You can fix anything broken, or maybe you can have some intruder tied to a chair…"

"Go ahead…"

"Or maybe you can have somebody tied to another kind of furniture…" He got his face closer, inches from hers.

She began to imagine his lips on hers.

"Or you can use it to close some boxes when you are moving out…"

She moved her face away from his, "Don't tell me you're getting a crazy idea following the Gordon's example. I need my mother living at least a few miles away from us."

"Although I have a real appreciation about my mother in law, Laura: I don't seem to recall being talking about her."

She looked back to the duct tape, "I don't know what we are talking about then…"

"We are talking about adding some space here, so your piano is allowed to come to live with us. Not your mother."

"The piano? Are you talking about moving the piano into the apartment?"

"Come on Laura, you are the practical one, but I'm capable of adding an interesting suggestion from time to time. I'm talking about moving the piano to our apartment, but to the new space we would be adding to it. I had a conversation with Mark this afternoon. They are moving out but they don't have the property sold yet. It's still on the market. The unit is a mirrored one of ours. The headboard wall is dividing the bedrooms. What do you think if we buy it, add the bedroom part of it to our apartment, and leave the rest of the property; the reception area and kitchen rearranged, and put it on the market for rent as a separate unit? In that way, we'd have a bigger apartment, with a spare bedroom; we'll skip the loft mortgage payments, and we'll receive an income to pay the increase of both apartment mortgages. What do you think?"

"I'm pleasantly surprised, Mr. Steele. And I am supposed to be the practical one… that's what you were saying? I think I can qualify your suggestion as frugal, in addition to being practical," she smiled to him, "I like your idea, Mr. Steele. But the duct tape… We are not going to need to pack the piano…"

He grabbed the duct tape from Laura's hand, threw it away over his shoulder and holding her face between his hands told her, "Why Laura, we'll find it a use. We can be creative after all, Mrs. Steele…"

"We certainly can be Mr. Steele, we certainly can be."

His lips were just one inch from hers when he barely stopped and whispered, "Happy New Year Laura."

"But it's December 30th, Mr. Steele. Still one day to celebrate."

"Let's follow the creative moment and start the celebration one day early, Laura…"


End file.
